Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Looking at the Undecideds Nationally

Our most recent national poll found that among voters undecided about how they'll vote for Congress this fall the major national political figure who inspires the strongest feelings in them is Sarah Palin. I don't know that there is any sure fire strategy that will help Democrats mitigate their losses this fall but running against Palin could be it.

The undecideds are pretty ambivalent when it comes to their feelings about Barack Obama- 44% of them approve of him and 44% disapprove so he's pretty much a wash. Narrow majorities of them do like some other major Democratic figures- 55/31 favorability for Hillary Clinton, 51/28 for Michelle Obama, 52/39 for Bill Clinton. It's too bad for the party they can't send Hillary out on the campaign trail but with the remaining undecideds the First Lady and the former President should be a positive influence.

None of those folks inspire nearly as strong of feelings with this fall's swing voters as Sarah Palin though. A whooping 65% of them have an unfavorable opinion of her to only 17% who see her in a positive light. And it's not as if that's a function of the remaining undecideds strongly disliking Republicans across the board-only 41% have a negative opinion of Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich and that falls to 33% for Mike Huckabee and just 25% for Mitt Romney.

The group of folks who haven't made up their minds yet is 14% Democrats, 21% Republicans, and 65% independents. They're not really sold on the President but they know they don't like Sarah Palin- making the Republican Party the Palin Party could help push Democratic candidates across the finish line in a lot of this year's close races.

I've never heard of anyone successfully running against someone who isn't an elected politician. How can you make that person relevant to your race? If it was that easy the Democrats would run against Rush Limbaugh.

"it's not as if that's a function of the remaining undecideds strongly disliking Republicans across the board"

No, it's a function of the lies and smears that have been spread in an attempt to tear down Sarah Palin. The fact that the left expends so much effort in attacking her and hating her is proof that she is a principled leader that will greatly benefit America.

I am not sure, whether undecideds will vote for democrats because of Sarah Palin. Are you suggesting that, they will forget the 10% unemployment rate and all the other things about this administration?

Please. PLEASE. Keep posting these types of polls. Please keep attacking Palin in a vain attempt to marginalize all those that believe in her values, her priorities and her common sense. Obama = brilliant. Palin = stupid. Kenyan anti-colonialism is what Americans really want, with global wealth redistribution, hatred of capitalism and cradle to grave Obama-ism. Thank you for keeping the sleeping giant awake, energized and focused.

It would be very interesting to get some polling data on unlikely voters. Of course, they're often the ones who refuse to take the polls in the first place, making that a particularly tricky exercise. Still, given the enthusiasm gap numbers being reported, it seems likely that the currently-uninvolved would skew heavily Democratic. If Democrats want to see what messages play best in motivating these voters, they need 'unlikely voter' screens to identify them. Right now everyone is screening for 'likely voters' and getting a Republican-skewed sample.

On a related note, pondering this and this, can you lay out a statistical basis sometime on why you think an LV model is more reliable than RV?

"It would be very interesting to get some polling data on unlikely voters. Of course, they're often the ones who refuse to take the polls in the first place, making that a particularly tricky exercise."

Exactly. We've had interest in doing that from prospective clients, but it's just tough to poll for those reasons and other logistical ones, like the fact it would take an extraordinary amount of extra rounds of calling to get a proper sample.

"And yet, PPP still insists on pushing "moderates" as the supposed swing voter and ignoring independents as the real swing voters, the real center."

We don't say anything about moderates being swing voters, but they are the self-labeled center in terms of views, and independents are not ideologically centrist, as I demonstrated to you in another thread using the Michigan poll.

Boy, the stupid is thick in here today. An anonymous commenter said, "Kenyan anti-colonialism is what Americans really want".

Really? Other than mimicking an insane GOP talking point with no basis in reality whatsoever, can you please explain what you meant? We're not Kenya, and we're not a colony, and are you defending colonialism, to boot?

What Americans want is some sanity to return to the debate in this country, instead of being dominated by this paranoid fantasy that exists only in the mind of the Teabagger Nation. You know, debates based on facts, not What Sarah Palin Said.

"If the undecided pool is 21% R and only 14% D, doesn't that mean that the Rs are likely to increase their split of the vote when these fence-sitters finally break?"

You would think so, but the point of Tom's post is that these people are not the gung-ho Republicans and independents who are already decided, obviously. Or else they'd already be on board. They dislike Palin even more than the general population does, and they are split on Obama.